Clarence Page: Using Biden’s Past Statements ‘The Kind of Silliness That Mitch McConnell Has Been Reduced To Now’

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19 Mar 2016

Chicago Tribune Editorial Board member Clarence Page argued that using Joe Biden’s past statements on Supreme Court appointments is “the kind of silliness that [Senate Majority Leader Sen.] Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has been reduced to now on Friday’s “McLaughlin Group.”

Page said, “You’re in the — for the fourth year of your second term, you don’t longer get to have your appointments approved. There’s no limit in the Constitution, but Mitch McConnell’s come up with this excuse.”

After fellow panelist Tom Rogan brought up the “Biden Rule,” then-Senator Joe Biden’s argument in 1992 that Supreme Court vacancies shouldn’t be filled during an election year, Page countered, “There is no Biden Rule. That — it was a Biden statement. It was not a rule. There’s no rule.” He added, “It’s not binding on this Congress. And that is a silly excuse, but it’s the kind of silliness that Mitch McConnell’s been reduced to now, by politicizing the court in this fashion.”

Page later added, “I don’t think the Founders had this mind, because if you can block a president in the fourth year, why not the third year, the second year, the first year?”